DHL sets up new IBM system
DHL Worldwide is now using IBM analytics software at its DHL Express Germany and DHL Call Forwarding North America divisions. A statement said: “The new intelligence system from IBM allows DHL to analyse more than 30 million customer records in just seconds versus hours while reducing its system maintenance costs. Using IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, DHL Express Germany can now tap into multiple sources of information via a single platform to get a complete view of the company operations in an instance.”
“In the past, we grew the business primarily on sales growth,” explains Klaus Baumhauer, controller at DHL Express Germany. “But to extend our market lead and meet long-term customer needs, we knew we had to be much more efficient. IBM technology has radically transformed our business processes. It has allowed us to reduce maintenance costs so that we now are only spending 25.000 Euros a year for maintenance. And we now have a unified, international data infrastructure to help achieve the consistency we need for fast, effective decision-making.”
An IBM statement read: “For near real-time access to all their financial information, DHL Global Forwarding finance employees across North America now use IBM Cognos TM1 for forecasting and budgeting data from the entire global organisation. Every hour, more than 100,000 records are automatically downloaded to produce a consolidated view of KPIs in less than two minutes. Previously, this was a manual process that would take up to three hours to complete.”
The company also uses IBM technology for management reporting of monthly results.
“The biggest change from just a few years ago is just how much emphasis we put into accessing information faster and faster. The need for reliable, up-to-the-minute information is constant. Without it, our finance directors are operating at a huge disadvantage,” says Anand Saxena, financial reporting (FIRE), DHL Global Forwarding North America. “Using IBM technology as our business analytic platform, we’ve been able to drastically improve the quality and timeliness of reporting and at the same time improve the efficiency of our finance department.”
